As in every campaign since voters first approved the penny sales tax in 1985, the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce is taking the lead in getting out the vote.

This year's effort includes a second push, for ESPLOST, which would fund a number of education-related projects.

Government is barred from spending taxpayer dollars to campaign for the two penny sales taxes, so the Chamber picks up the slack.

So far, it has raised about $80,000 through its committee, Citizens for Progress, to pay for a media campaign, fliers and other efforts. That's up from between $65,000 and $70,000 during the last SPLOST campaign in 2003.

The Chamber is promoting a series of community meetings in which voters can learn more about the taxes from elected officials and business leaders. It is also trying more grassroots tactics this year such as distributing leaflets in neighborhoods.

From the Chamber's perspective, supporting SPLOST and ESPLOST is just common sense, said Trip Tollison, vice president of existing industry and government affairs for the Chamber and Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"The Chamber's mission is to provide quality customer service and programs that meet the needs of our members, improve the economic environment of our community and build a legacy for the next generation," Tollison said. "In the business community, the top two issues in Savannah we keep hearing about are crime and education. Both go hand in hand."

The paired penny taxes address both, said Chamber Board Chairman Brian Foster. The Chamber sees SPLOST and ESPLOST as a crime prevention package, he said, and is marketing it as such.

The logic goes like this: SPLOST will pay for a jail expansion, as well as other public safety measures such as new police precincts and equipment. ESPLOST will build career and technical high schools and will institute programs aimed at reducing dropout rates and therefore juvenile crime.

Foster cited the final report of the Savannah Public Safety Task Force, issued in May 2005, which found the majority of crimes committed in Savannah are committed by youth.

"It's easy to correlate the high dropout rate with the juvenile crime increase," he said. "If we can keep kids in school with the hope that they will get a skill and a job, that will decrease crime."

The Chamber began negotiating with Savannah-Chatham County school board officials about a year ago to ensure ESPLOST included programs it felt were necessary.

The Chamber did not decide whether to support the taxes until the county, the cities and the school board finalized their lists.

The taxes also have the added benefit, Tollison said, of keeping property taxes down.

Businesses are not eligible for the Stephens-Day Homestead Exemption to offset property tax increases the way residences are. Tollison said property taxes are becoming more burdensome for business owners.

"Whatever we can do to keep property taxes down in the community, we're going to do," he said. "We get lots of complaints that business property taxes are going up every year, and this is one way to keep them down."

The Chamber kicked off its campaign with a news conference Aug. 23.

Its media efforts include billboards and newspaper, radio and television ads that will begin running after Labor Day.

Volunteers also will hit the streets to post fliers.

"People can go to Web sites who really want to look into it, but certainly it's easier for us to put something into their hands instead of them having to do the homework themselves," Tollison said.